Maximizing Progress

Ant Megalopolis ~ Nature’s Secret Power Docu

2012-02-02T17:50:00.002-05:00

Thanks to DailyMail for spotting Nature’s Secret Power documentary on an Ant Megalopolis!

NOAA OSCURS ~ Ocean Surface Current Sims

2012-02-02T10:29:00.005-05:00

Thanks to gCaptain for spotting NOAA's efforts to understand ocean currents through the tracking of tsunami-related marine debris...

"Citizen monitoring and reporting can help NOAA scientists better understand the location and nature of the debris generated by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Ships traveling the Pacific Ocean and beachcombers on the coast can now report significant sightings. If reporting a sighting, be sure to include what you saw, when you saw it, and where it was located."

They've got tracker apps and emailables plus they've tried to model what will happen via OSCURS...

R.I.P. Don Cornelius ~ Soul Train Creator Suicide

2012-02-01T21:11:00.008-05:00

Tragic to hear that Don Cornelius is gone. Creator of Soul Train, inspiration to millions of us. CBS reports...

"Soul Train" began in 1970 in Chicago on WCIU-TV as a local program and aired nationally from 1971 to 2006. It introduced television audiences to such legendary artists as Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye and Barry White and brought the best R&B, soul and later hip-hop acts to TV and had teenagers dance to them. It was one of the first shows to showcase African-Americans prominently, although the dance group was racially mixed. Cornelius was the show's executive producer and its host from 1971-1993."

It's terribly sad that our combined love for his work couldn't translate into something supportive and meaningful to him.

Power of Charisma ~ CBS on Engaging Politicians

2012-02-01T16:24:00.004-05:00

Interesting to see MIT colleagues Alex "Sandy" Pentland and now-alumnus Daniel Olguin of startup Sociometric Solutions on CBS show about politicians and charisma...

"...at MIT's Media Lab, researchers say that with a little device they actually can use science to measure your charisma... assuming, of course, that you have some to measure. It's called the Sociometer [...] It measures NOT what you say, but how you say it. "So the first thing is energy. You have to be energetic," said Pentland. "It shows up in your hands. It shows up in the voice, the way you sort of carry yourself and do things."

Global Startups ~ MIT GSW in Istanbul, Turkey!

2012-02-01T15:20:00.006-05:00

If you're interested in new venture development, entrepreneurial ecosystems, and cluster crafting, be sure to attend the MIT GSW -- the Global Startup Workshop -- this year in Eurasian bridge-nation, Turkey. Since I helped start this conference at MIT in 1998 -- and every year since -- the MIT GSW brings together hundreds of entrepreneurs and supporters from dozens of countries for intensive discussions, panels, keynotes, etc. This Spring 2012, together with the MIT Enterprise Forum Turkey and Ozyegin and Sabancı universities, the GSW spotlights new technological, global market, and strategic directions. And all this in Istanbul one of the top global supercities! Go!

Quadrotor Swarms ~ UPenn's GRASP Lab Flies!

2012-02-01T14:27:00.003-05:00

Thanks to Alex Willisson for spotting these Quadrotor Swarms!

"Experiments performed with a team of nano quadrotors at the GRASP Lab, University of Pennsylvania. Vehicles developed by KMel Robotics. Special thanks to Professor Daniel Lee..."

Over Africa ~ NASA ISS Spaceflight Timelapse!

2012-02-01T09:17:00.003-05:00

NASA shares beautiful view flying over Africa in the ISS!

Healthy Communities ~ Urban Vitality by Design

2012-01-31T22:09:00.006-05:00

Jane Brody writes in the NYTimes that Communities Learn the Good Life Can Be a Killer, a damning indictment of the so-called suburban dream which is really a sprawl-city nightmare...

"...expanded metropolitan areas have had a far more serious impact on the people who live there by creating vehicle-dependent environments that foster obesity, poor health, social isolation, excessive stress and depression. As a result, these experts say, our “built environment” -- where we live, work, play and shop -- has become a leading cause of disability and death in the 21st century. [...] “Children who grow up in suburbia can’t meet their life needs without getting a ride somewhere,” [UCLA Dr Richard] Jackson said. “The average teen in suburbia says it’s boring.” [...] “We’ve engineered physical activity out of children’s lives,” [...] Can Our Suburbs Be Saved? [Designing Healthy Communities book and] four-part series [...] highlights changes being made in forward-thinking communities -- changes that foster better physical and mental health by redesigning the built environment. “Health happens in neighborhoods, not doctors’ offices”

Compelling stuff. That's why we need green, clean, dense, intense, lively, vibrant, smart and inspiring vital cities! Anyways, check out the site and series, including this promo trailer...

Natural Beauty ~ DailyMail Spots Lovely Images

2012-01-31T19:29:00.006-05:00

The DailyMail delivers again with this lovely rainbow meets perfect wave shot by Hawaiian Zak Noyle off of Tahiti... And this amazing aurora shot by German dog handler Kerstin Langenberger over the city of Grundarfjorour in Iceland...

Breaking Point ~ Ballet Dancers at Joffrey School

2012-01-31T19:15:00.002-05:00

Interesting promo for new show Breaking Point about aspiring ballet dancers and the pressures of learning at the Joffrey School...

Tech Transformations ~ WSJ on the Coming Boom

2012-01-31T15:49:00.002-05:00

Mark Mills and Julio Ottino write in the WSJ about The Coming Tech-led Boom ~ Three breakthroughs are poised to transform this century as much as telephony and electricity did the last...

"...three grand technological transformations with the potential to rival that of the past century. All find their epicenters in America: big data, smart manufacturing and the wireless revolution. [Big Data means...] From social media to medical revolutions anchored in metadata analyses, wherein astronomical feats of data crunching enable heretofore unimaginable services and businesses, we are on the cusp of unimaginable new markets. [Smart Manufacturing means...] we are just entering an era where the very fabrication of physical things is revolutionized by emerging materials science. [Wireless Revolution means...] most humans on the planet will be connected wirelessly. Never before have a billion people -- soon billions more -- been able to communicate, socialize and trade in real time. [How to boost odds this happens...] Liquid financial markets, sensible tax and immigration policy, and balanced regulations will allow the next boom to flourish. But the essential fuel is innovation."

All sounds obvious, but politicians and wingnuts of all persuasions do have a way of screwing things up for the rest of us. Nevertheless, I'm actually optimistic;-)

Molecular Cloud ~ Barnard 68 is Dark Isolation!

2012-01-31T02:20:00.001-05:00

NASA APOD spots dark Molecular Cloud Barnard 68...

Flat Tax ~ Dan Mitchell on Simplicity & Growth

2012-01-30T11:43:00.003-05:00

The Flat Tax is simple, just, and good. CATO's Dan Mitchell explains!

Building Flying Cars ~ Anna Dietrich on CNN/TED

2012-01-29T23:42:00.004-05:00

Excellent to see MIT alumna Anna Dietrich on CNN/TED sharing her experience co-founding and being the operational spine behind Terrafugia, her flying car company!

"I co-founded Terrafugia as a graduate student in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT. A pilot myself, I was interested in taking advantage of the new Sport Pilot and Light Sport Aircraft Rule that the Federal Aviation Administration created in 2004 to lower the barriers to entry to personal aviation for both pilots and manufacturers. [...] Since the beginning I've enjoyed applying engineering problem-solving skills to the challenge of company creation: In many ways, starting a company is just a big systems engineering design-within-constraints problem. I'm also looking forward to fulfilling a dream I've had since grade school by being able to fly something that I've both helped design and build when I take the Transition out for the first time."

Eko Atlantic ~ Huge Nigerian Urban Development!

2012-01-29T19:42:00.012-05:00

Very intriguing to read more about the progress of the huge 9 square kilometer Eko Atlantic gigaproject off Victoria Island in Nigerian megacity Lagos... As of last year, the landfill and seawall are progressing...
And here's one view of the envisioned future city... With various planned districts of Eko Atlantic... Here's the official developer's "inside story" promo video... CNN Inside Africa reports... ABN interviews David Frame, MD of South Energyx Nigeria Limited part of the Chagoury Group, developers and city planners behind the project... Finally, here's Lagos State Governor Babatunde Fashola speaking about Eko Atlantic... (See also 2009 piece by Africa Unchained's Emeka Okafor)

Final Words ~ Last Things Said Before Death...

2012-01-29T16:34:00.006-05:00

Moving piece by Kerry Egan in CNN Belief blog...

"I am a hospice chaplain. I visit people who are dying -- in their homes, in hospitals, in nursing homes. [...] What do people who are sick and dying talk about with the chaplain? [...] Mostly, they talk about their families: about their mothers and fathers, their sons and daughters. They talk about the love they felt, and the love they gave. Often they talk about love they did not receive, or the love they did not know how to offer, the love they withheld, or maybe never felt for the ones they should have loved unconditionally. They talk about how they learned what love is, and what it is not. And sometimes, when they are actively dying, fluid gurgling in their throats, they reach their hands out to things I cannot see and they call out to their parents: Mama, Daddy, Mother."

Read the rest, heartwrenching stuff including Kerry's discussion of her learning experiences and personal faith beliefs. I'm not of her creed but I honor her humanity and admire her goodness. In any case, I personally think dying and specifically death due to aging are the ultimate genetic disease -- a devilish DNA defect we all inherit from ancestors who were never naturally selected for longevity, nevermind immortality. Maybe with enough investment in life sciences and biotechnology we can end this scourge?

Abundance ~ Creating Hopeful Future ASAP!

2012-01-29T12:18:00.005-05:00

In the cornucopian doomslayer spirit of Julian Simon and John McCarthy and G Harry Stine, the X-Prize & Singularity U founder-chairman Peter Diamandis and co-author Steven Kotler pre-launch their new book Abundance spotlighting four powerful mutually-reinforcing forces that should enable humanity to maximize progress towards a far more hopeful future...

Exponential Technologies ~ Fast changing transformations;
DIY Innovation ~ Democratizing invention and action;
Techno-Philanthropy ~ Young, wealthy activists;
Rising Billion ~ New creative minds online.

Here's Peter describing Abundance... Plus book trailer... (Thanks to Ray Kurzweil for the FYI!-)

Festival of Learning ~ MIT Media Lab's inner-IAP

2012-01-29T11:58:00.003-05:00

Nate and a whole crew of MIT Media Lab students just orchestrated a delightful two-day Festival of Learning! Check out the two summary videos stitched up by Michelle in near-realtime -- shot, edited, and presented in the same day!

Nuke It ~ Watch Microwaves Ruin Everything!-)

2012-01-28T20:23:00.001-05:00

DailyMail spots microwaving everything video;-)

Experiment Fund ~ Harvard Engineers Capitalize

2012-01-27T19:05:00.003-05:00

Very interesting to see Harvard's Engineering school dial up their venture seed capitalization and commercial connections with the Experiment Fund!

Hiriko ~ MIT Electric CityCar Launches in EU

2012-01-27T01:32:00.008-05:00

Excellent to see my CityCar colleagues at MIT Media Lab and their collaborations in Europe leading to Hiriko electric citycar launch! Just a touch of history: Witness key design engineer Will Lark here two years ago with an advanced concept vehicle. This is now real!

Shooting Freetown ~ Sierra Leone Media Makers

2012-01-26T17:43:00.005-05:00

Thanks to Boima Tucker on Africa is a Country for spotting short ethnographic docu film Shooting Freetown by Kieran Hanson...

"Inspired by Jean Rouch's ‘shared anthropology’ and ‘ethno-fiction’, Shooting Freetown follows three people forging their way in film and music in the nation's capital, facing the constant struggles with vision and resourcefulness. By incorporating collaborative video projects, their stories give a fresh image of post-war Freetown -- presented [...] through their own lens."

Also check out FSK Happy Birthday by Alfred Kpana... And Banana Dem Want by Paps...

3 Days in Dubai ~ Lovely Vibe City & Peoples!

2012-01-25T14:29:00.002-05:00

UniqueDaily spots 3 Days in Dubai! Addendum on 2 Feb 2012 -- the uploader has retroactively prohibited the embed and appears to make it a private video.

Future of Food ~ New Growth for Hungry Planet

2012-01-25T14:03:00.003-05:00

Nice Future of Food piece by John Vidal in the Guardian/Observer...

"How can we feed the 2.5 billion more people -- an extra China and India -- likely to be alive in 2050? The UN says we will have to nearly double our food production and governments say we should adopt new technologies and avoid waste, but however you cut it, there are already one billion chronically hungry people, there's little more virgin land to open up, climate change will only make farming harder to grow food in most places, the oceans are overfished, and much of the world faces growing water shortages. [...] Food, farm and water technologists will have to find new ways to grow more crops in places that until now were hard or impossible to farm. It may need a total rethink over how we use land and water. So enter a new generation of radical farmers, novel foods and bright ideas."

These include Algae, Artificial Meat, New Crops, Desert Greening, and Insects!

Enriched Expressivity ~ Buechley's Hi-Lo Tech!

2012-01-25T02:03:00.010-05:00

Brazilian science-journalist Cristina Caldes spotlighted Media Lab colleague Professor Leah Buechley recently in her piece Grupo do MIT Media Lab coloca tecnologias em lugares inesperados Here Leah shares her High-Low Tech group's work in enriching all of our creative expressivity and encouraging an enduring love for technology!

The Mobile Web ~ Affordable Text+Voice Internet

2012-01-24T16:57:00.004-05:00

White African spotlights very nice piece by Dunia Media on the mobile web revolution...

"...this video showcases iCow and M-Farm, both providing agricultural data to farmers, not in a browser, but as text or voice messages. One could think the title to be a tad misleading, as the “mobile web” term is largely applied to web interaction on a browser on a phone. What I like about this take though is this; the internet allows for a paradigm that doesn’t care what device you have, whether PC or phone, as long as you have a database and a channel you’re in the game. [These] challenge Western conceptions of what the internet is."

If a Tree Falls ~ Eco-Terrorism Documentary...

2012-01-24T16:47:00.006-05:00

Thanks to NYTimes DotEarthling Andrew Revkin for spotting new documentary If a Tree Falls about the eco-terrorist Earth Liberation Front. Revkin interviews the director, Marshall Curry who mentions this important nugget asking how best to...

"...respond to non-violent civil disobedience. In the 90s the police use of tear gas and pepper-spray and nightsticks at protests radicalized a lot of activists and convinced them that the democratic system was broken. A portion of those people decided to take up arson in response. I think the film is suddenly a really important cautionary tale to activists to think carefully about tactics, and also a cautionary tale to law enforcement to think about their response to activism, because some responses bring people into the democratic argument and some responses radicalize people."

See If a Tree Falls trailer...

Urban Greenery ~ Celebrating Plants in Cities!

2012-01-24T16:19:00.005-05:00

Several lovely recent posts over on Urban Greenery! Click for more...

Fertile Turf ~ South Boston's Innovation District...

2012-01-23T23:54:00.007-05:00

Very nice Globe piece by Michael Farrell spotlighting how many key High-tech firms find fertile turf in South Boston...

"Two years after Mayor Thomas M. Menino branded a swath of the South Boston Waterfront as the Innovation District -- a bid to lure big Web companies and start-ups alike -- a healthy crop of technology companies is moving in. Office rents are low, at least for Boston, and the neighborhood is catching on; any company looking for space in the city is looking there, real estate brokers say. As Menino mentioned in his State of the City address last week, 100 companies and 3,000 jobs have come in, bringing a laptop-toting crowd to an area long known for its gritty working seaport and artist studios. [...] The Innovation District umbrella covers a disparate collection of smaller neighborhoods and development clusters, including Fort Point, which is a dense section of industrial buildings developed in the 1830s, parts of the Financial and Leather districts, Channel Center, Fan Pier, and Liberty Wharf. Within that urban landscape -- home to the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, Marine Industrial Park, and the Bank of America Pavilion, as well as numerous vast parking lots -- there are plans to add more than one million square feet of new construction."

Fantastic boomzone! Also check out my posts on Fraunhofer CSE moving in, my helping kickoff the Greentown Labs incubation space, and my visit to Ginkgo BioWorks, and our MIT classes on Living Labs and Urban Ventures.

Megaboston ~ Radical 1912 Vision for Hub City!

2012-01-23T01:43:00.005-05:00

Welcome to Megaboston writes Chris Marstall in the Globe's Ideas section, spotlighting a century-old plan...

"Could Boston have become one of the world’s megacities? [...] that was the ambition of a Brookline lawyer named Daniel J. Kiley, who [...] submitted a bill to the Massachusetts Legislature that would have totally transformed the city, swallowing every municipality within 10 miles of the State House to create a unified “Greater Boston.” Kiley’s bill proposed bringing 32 cities and towns -- from industrial centers like Malden, Waltham, and Cambridge to leafy burgs like Wellesley, Lexington, and Nahant -- within Boston’s borders. At some 327 square miles and with a population of 1.4 million, the huge new megalopolis would have been larger in area than New York City, Chicago, or Philadelphia."

Chocolate's Child Slaves ~ CNN Farming Expose

2012-01-22T20:40:00.006-05:00

CNN Freedom Project's David McKenzie investigates unsavory labor practices in Chocolate's Child Slaves...

"UNICEF estimates that nearly a half-million children work on farms across Ivory Coast, which produces nearly 40% of the world’s supply of cocoa. The agency says hundreds of thousands of children, many of them trafficked across borders, are engaged in the worst forms of child labor."

VFX Breakdown ~ Boardwalk Empire Before/After

2012-01-22T19:27:00.002-05:00

Miss Cellania spots Boardwalk Empire VFX breakdown!

Hopeful Vangelis ~ Invest in Beauty & Culture...

2012-01-22T17:11:00.004-05:00

Al Jazeera interviews Vangelis for alliance of civilizations meeting...

"What we need today more than anything else is to invest in beauty, because beauty is harmony which comes from chaos. But we invest in chaos, because chaos is much more profitable than peace .... Beauty is a kind of safety vault for people. And music as well. I don't think music is beautiful today, music is just a way to advertise other things because music is very powerful as a force and then through music we can advertise anything we want .... When music becomes a product [...] something is wrong about that. [...] To be interested in education, art, science culture, for me this is the key against the crisis today .... The banking crisis is not as important as the culture crisis. So when you deal with culture I think you can manage the rest easier. All the rest, all the misery comes because we don't have beauty, you know, the quality of life. And quality of life is not money, quality of life is something else."

Sully vs Shitty ~ Stark Contrasts in Competence...

2012-01-22T15:40:00.007-05:00

The stupid showboating, incredible incompetence, and absence of ethics in Costa Concordia disaster master, Captain Francesco "Shitty" Schettino, contrast dramatically with the actions and character of US Airways emergency landing pilot, Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger...

"On January 15, 2009, the aircraft flying this route, an Airbus A320-214, was successfully ditched in the Hudson River adjacent to midtown Manhattan six minutes after takeoff from LaGuardia Airport after being disabled by striking a flock of Canada geese during its initial climb out. The incident became known as the Miracle On The Hudson. The bird strike, which occurred just northeast of the George Washington Bridge about three minutes into the flight, resulted in an immediate and complete loss of thrust from both engines. When the crew of the aircraft determined that they would be unable to reliably reach any airfield, they turned southbound and glided over the Hudson, finally ditching the airliner near the USS Intrepid museum about three minutes after losing power. All 155 occupants safely evacuated the airliner."

This is because the Captain and crew executed flawlessly...

"Shortly after taking off, Sullenberger reported to air traffic control that the plane had hit a large flock of birds, disabling both engines. Several passengers saw the left engine on fire. Sullenberger discussed with air traffic control the possibilities of either returning to LaGuardia airport or attempting to land at the Teterboro Airport in New Jersey. However, Sullenberger quickly decided that neither was feasible, and determined that ditching in the Hudson River was the only option for everyone's survival. Sullenberger told the passengers to "brace for impact", then piloted the plane to a smooth ditching in the river at about 3:31 P.M. All passengers and crew members survived. He later said, "It was very quiet as we worked, my co-pilot and I. We were a team. But to have zero thrust coming out of those engines was shocking -- the silence." Sullenberger walked the unflooded part of the passenger cabin twice to make sure everyone had evacuated before retrieving the plane's maintenance logbook and being the last to evacuate the aircraft."

Contrast this with Costa's Shitty incompetence, lack leadership, and immorality. Then see here visualization of the US Airways emergency situation plus real-life air traffic control signals... And post-analysis with Captain Sully himself on 60 Minutes...

City Slickers ~ Urbanization in China & World...

2012-01-22T14:32:00.001-05:00

Economist spotlights urbanization in China & rest of world...

State Capitalism ~ BRIC Visible Hand MNC's...

2012-01-22T13:34:00.008-05:00

Very compelling Economist piece on The rise of state capitalism: Emerging-market multinationals and Visible Hand special report...

"The spread of a new sort of business in the emerging world will cause increasing problems [...] The era of free-market triumphalism has come to a juddering halt, and the crisis that destroyed Lehman Brothers in 2008 is now engulfing much of the rich world. [...] The crisis of liberal capitalism has been rendered more serious by the rise of a potent alternative: state capitalism, which tries to meld the powers of the state with the powers of capitalism. It depends on government to pick winners and promote economic growth. But it also uses capitalist tools such as listing state-owned companies on the stockmarket and embracing globalisation. [...] State capitalism can claim the world’s most successful big economy for its camp. [...] State capitalism can also claim some of the world’s most powerful companies. [...] State capitalism is on the march, overflowing with cash and emboldened by the crisis in the West. [...] This special report will focus on the new state capitalism of the emerging world rather than the old state capitalism in Europe, because it reflects the future rather than the past. The report will look mainly at China, Russia and Brazil."

This is essential -- and quite troublesome -- reading.

ABB Robotics ~ Lovely Automation Examples!

2012-01-22T13:26:00.004-05:00

Daily dose of automation available via ABB Robotics channel! Including Arla's Packing Cheese solution!-)

Global Warmth ~ NASA Visualizes Climate Data...

2012-01-21T00:42:00.003-05:00

Thanks to io9 for spotting NASA Goddard global temperature data...

Goshawk Acrobatics ~ Near Avian Speed Limits!

2012-01-20T14:28:00.002-05:00

MIT's Jennifer Chu writes about the Speed limit for birds in a piece about MIT & Harvard research on critical speed limits for bird-crash avoidance;-) Check out BBC Goshawk flight imagery too!

Eye of God ~ VISTA Telescopes Helix Nebula!

2012-01-19T17:08:00.005-05:00

CNN notes how Helix nebula comes into better focus...

American Biomass ~ US Forest Coverage Map...

2012-01-19T10:53:00.002-05:00

Robert Gonzalez at io9 spots Incredibly detailed map reveals forest biomass in the United States...

"By working with colleagues at the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Geological Survey, researchers Josef Kellndorf and Wayne Walker spent six years assembling the national forest map [...] using space-based radar, satellite sensors, computer models, and enormous quantities of ground-based data. The end result, according to NASA, is the most detailed view of forest structure and carbon storage assembled for any country in history."

Netherlands from Above ~ Godviews of Us++

2012-01-19T00:29:00.006-05:00

Thanks to Greetings From Holland for spotting the Nederland van Boven godviews! This Netherlands from Above show visualizes patterns of us from abstract heights through the magic of timelapse, sensors, tracking, and other sociotechnological tricks! Lovely views!

Financial Crises ~ Booms & Busts 1810-2010...

2012-01-18T21:45:00.005-05:00

ChartPorn spotlights Financial Crises from 1810-2010!

"Top half of the chart maps financial crises in terms of GDP affected, while the bottom indicates number of sovereign defaults..."

Mobility Borders ~ Brockmann et al Follow US$

2012-01-18T13:26:00.004-05:00

Fascinating visualization of Community Structure in Multi-Scale Transportation Networks leading to Mobility Borders. Click...

A Dangerous Delay ~ Oxfam & StC Disaster Rept

2012-01-18T01:02:00.004-05:00

The BBC writes Slow response to East Africa famine 'cost lives' according to Oxfam and Save the Children...

"...it took more than six months for aid agencies to act on warnings of imminent famine. Between 50,000 and 100,000 people died in Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia. The agencies say governments, donors, the United Nations and NGOs need to learn from the mistakes. In a report titled A Dangerous Delay, the agencies say a culture of risk aversion stalled a large-scale aid effort. They say part of the problem was that the governments of Kenya and Ethiopia were unwilling to admit the scale of the disaster, but also that aid agency staff felt they had seen the problem many times before. "Many donors wanted proof of a humanitarian catastrophe before acting to prevent one," the report says. "Sophisticated early warning systems first forecast a likely emergency as early as August 2010, but the full-scale response was not launched until July 2011." By that time it says, "malnutrition rates in parts of East Africa had gone far beyond the emergency threshold and there was high profile media coverage of the crisis."

PC+Mobiles ~ Total Market Share Longterm Data

2012-01-17T22:33:00.005-05:00

The DailyMail's Damien Gayle spotlights PC industry longterm stats...

MIT Nuts & Bolts of New Ventures ~ IAP 2012

2012-01-17T22:24:00.003-05:00

Earlier today Tuesday, 17 January 2012, Joe Hadzima kicked off the latest incarnation of our MIT Nuts & Bolts of New Ventures (a.k.a. Nuts & Bolts of Business Plans) course over the MIT Independent Activities Period (IAP 2012). Joe gave an overview of the essence of business planning as a process and special guest speaker Stephen Pearse spoke on how to present venture essentials. Stay tuned the rest of this week in MIT 34-101 from 6:00pm to 9:00pm on Tue, Wed, Thurs and again next week Tue, Wed, and Thursday.

Eagle Nebula ~ Herschel Space Telescopy of M16

2012-01-17T17:32:00.005-05:00

BBC's Jonathan Amos spots Eagle Nebula via Herschel 'scope! New 'scope Herschel differs from Hubble...

"Hubble is sensitive to optical light, the kind of light we detect with our eyes. This is easily blocked or scattered by the dust, and shows us merely the shape of the billowing clouds of material. Herschel, on the other hand, is sensitive to much longer wavelength radiation, in far-infrared. This enables it to detect the emission coming directly from the cold gas and dust that cloaks so much of the region. [Below are the] Iconic Pillars: Hubble (right) sees the light that is scattered off the columns; Herschel (left) detects the pillars glowing in their own light."

Nightvision Evac ~ Costa Via Coastie Chopper

2012-01-17T17:29:00.008-05:00

Check out Italian Coast Guard nightvision video footage of Costa Concordia evacuation. Frightening as hell from a distance, it must have been terrifying to be caught in it... And here's more damning evidence from the Italian Coast Guard, a recording of CG Commander Gregorio Maria De Falco incredulous and outraged that Captain Francesco Schettino has not only abandoned ship while there are still pax on board but equivocating and effectively refusing to reboard to advise in the rescue. Grotesque. And in case you're curious, here's what this Captain's criminally idiotic showboating has destroyed... Here's GPS-map visualization of the path to destruction... And here's the latest Italian fashion, quoting De Falco telling the Chicken of the Sea to get the fuck back on board...

I Have A Dream ~ Let Freedom Ring Everywhere!

2012-01-16T21:14:00.005-05:00

Worth viewing on this day -- MLK's August 28, 1963 speech in DC...

Mediated Matter ~ Oxman's Fab Bioinspirations!

2012-01-16T20:56:00.003-05:00

Check out Media Lab LabCast on Neri Oxman's Mediated Matter group and their bio-inspired fabrications including morphables, topographical shapebots, foamcretes and more!

True Africa ~ MIT DV's Grunitzky's Lomé Reports

2012-01-16T15:29:00.007-05:00

Our MIT Development Ventures 2011 True Africa team is reporting from Lomé, Togo as they explore the market potential for their base-of-pyramid professionals directory service. Claude Grunitzky writes...

"...we’re already doing a better job of explaining our True Africa service proposal to the workers we’ve been meeting in corner shops and back alleys. (My nephew/assistant Ayité is great at starting conversations, and he has great people skills. It must run in the family...) I’ve been practicing the pitch in French and local language Mina, and now the words just flow out of my mouth like H20 out of a faucet. True Africa is a free -- I repeat FREE -- mobile directory for local service providers who will get to post their name, occupation, location and cellphone number, in addition to client ratings, through their cellphone, in order to drum up new business by getting unexpected calls from prospective new clients. A bit of a mouthful, I know, but some in our target market seem drawn to the idea nonetheless. Still, many are also questioning the usage of the word “free” because by now everyone knows that there’s no such thing as a free lunch."

Smart Window ~ Samsung's CES Award Winner

2012-01-16T15:12:00.003-05:00

This Samsung transparent Smart Window gives a taste for what smart surfaces everywhere will be like at home, in vehicles, at office, plus... See Gizmodo and Geekosystem comments.

NFC Cluster ~ RF ID & Payments Boston Hub...

2012-01-16T15:02:00.003-05:00

Very interesting to see what friend and colleague Damien Balsan has been up to with his NFC Cluster initiative...

"...a cluster of Boston-area groups and individuals that support the development, adoption and commercial success of Near Field Communication (NFC). The NFC Cluster Boston hosts educational programs, workshops, competitions, and exhibits. Our goal is to stimulate Innovation through the rapid development of NFC Technology in most smartphones and other electronic devices. We welcome the participation of anyone looking to apply NFC to their industry, business, application or research."

Non-Event 2012 ~ Kickstarter Their Concerts!

2012-01-16T13:23:00.004-05:00

Thanks to Media Lab colleague Joe Paradiso for spotlighting Non-Event -- orchestrators of avant-garde performances throughout Boston area -- and their Kickstarter campaign for the 2012 season...

"We're asking for your support to help us continue to produce top-notch experimental music in and around Boston. 2011 marked our 10th year and we mounted our most ambitious season to date. We organized 30 concerts over the course of the year, featuring some of the finest sound artists, improvisers, and experimental musicians from Boston and around the world. [...] Our plans are just as ambitious for our upcoming season, but we need your help as we go to eleven in 2012. Your contribution to this Kickstarter campaign will help us take care of all the things, both big and small, that allow us to make great concerts happen."

Blueseed ~ Visa-Free Floating Startup Hubship!

2012-01-16T01:48:00.007-05:00

Fascinating to read about Blueseed, the visa-free floating startup and tech incubator ship planned off Silicon Valley, CA...

"Because of the United States' current immigration and regulatory regime, bold and creative entrepreneurs from around the world aren’t given the chance to come to Silicon Valley and develop the technologies that could be creating jobs and propelling the economy forward. Blueseed aims to solve this problem so that Silicon Valley remains the world’s center for innovation. Our team, backed by Paypal founder Peter Thiel, is creating a high-tech visa-free entrepreneurship and technology incubator on an ocean vessel in international waters. Our facilities will be a short ferry ride away from Silicon Valley so that great ideas and talent from around the world can live, work, and play while having convenient access to the San Francisco Bay Area. We will provide a customized environment centered around smart, proven, cost-effective legal best practices, and modern living and work accommodations."

So far multiple vessel concepts have been floated... Be sure to also read Tafline Laylin's interview of the Blueseed founders on Inhabitat.

Gardens of Eden ~ DailyMail Spots Greenroofs...

2012-01-15T22:47:00.004-05:00

Emma Reynolds in the DailyMail spotlights Gardens of Eden: The heavenly horticulture blossoming on roofs high above the city...

"High above the dreary grey streets of the world's cities, gorgeous gardens blossom in a wilderness of rooftops. These unexpectedly colourful spots provide an oasis of calm away from the bustle of urban streets across the U.S., Europe and as far away as Japan. The elevated scenery ranges from a wildflower meadow on top of a house in London to a neat lawn tended on top of a New York office block. Married couple Diane Cook and Len Jenshel travelled the world capturing their photographs of these stunning sights. It is their latest project after 25 years spent producing images that show how human's influence their environment. The eye-catching plants and flowers not only transform the top of dull office buildings but create habitats for birds and insects and are good for the environment. They reduce noise pollution and release oxygen into the atmosphere.[...] 'It was great to do a story on green roofs, where human impact is actually having a positive influence on the planet. 'The first green roof we visited was the Cook and Fox Architects building in Manhattan. We were blown away. 'It was this beautiful green planted area in the middle of Manhattan in a sea of grey rooftops. We both gasped, we couldn't believe this beautiful garden was on the roof in the middle of the city. 'We were so impressed in Switzerland and Germany, where it is now mandatory for any new building with a flat roof to install a green roof."

Life of Flowers ~ Vorobyov's Blossoms Timelapse!

2012-01-15T21:03:00.002-05:00

Miss Cellania spots Life of Flowers!

Korean Superlink ~ Megastructure on NatGeo!

2012-01-15T17:10:00.007-05:00

Fascinating to read about Dutch constuction company Strukton's role in building the Busan-Geoje Fixed Link, a South Korean immersion tunnel featured on National Geographic Megastructures...

"The underwater highway of the Busan-Geoje Fixed Link is one of the deepest and longest immersion tunnels in the world, with a depth of 48 metres and a total length of 3.2 kilometres. [...] The extreme weather conditions made the construction a huge challenge for the engineers. The Busan-Geoje Fixed Link opened for traffic in December 2010, reducing the travel time from Busan to Geoje from more than 2.5 hours to just 40 minutes."

Series of Surges ~ Max More on Transhumanity!

2012-01-13T02:10:00.010-05:00

Adam Ford interviews brilliantly clear-thinking strategic philosopher and futurist Max More about Singularity and Transhumanism on H+...

Moving Type ~ The Secret Joyrides of Books!-)

2012-01-11T21:45:00.003-05:00

UniqueDaily spots The Joy of Books!

Russky Progress ~ Vladivostok Bridge Timelapse!

2012-01-11T00:15:00.003-05:00

Very nice timelapse update video from bridge-builders connecting Russky Island to Vladivostok, one of the emergent innovation epicenters of Eurasia...

Global Maps ~ NASA Earth Observatory Data!

2012-01-10T17:36:00.003-05:00

Check out lovely NASA Earth Observatory Global Maps!

Artisan's Asylum ~ Community DIY Craft Studio...

2012-01-10T17:21:00.006-05:00

I just went to the first session of Nadeem Mazen and Dan Paluska's IAP class on Tech, Art, and Entrepreneurship: How To Make Money And Do What You Love, All The Time, Without Winning The Lottery. Many tasty topics to come over next couple weeks including visit to Artisan's Asylum, a Somerville, MA-based 25K ft2 DIY hackerspace full of fab tools and equipment...

Grand Galaxy ~ NASA Scopes Spiral Starscape!

2012-01-10T00:52:00.003-05:00

NASA APOD serves up stellar Grand Spiral Galaxy...

Press Freedom Map ~ Newseum on Liberties...

2012-01-09T21:19:00.002-05:00

Chart Porn spotlights interactive Press Freedom Map...

Balloon Mapping Kits ~ DIY Carto on Kickstarter!

2012-01-09T21:04:00.006-05:00

Excellent to see MIT Media Lab project Grassroots Mapping dial things up on Kickstarter! Previous ML-related Kickstarter projects CineSkates and Twine have gone huge! Now you can get Balloon Mapping Kits to send...

"...a camera up on a balloon, snapping photos, and stitching them into a map. Over the past 18 months, we’ve build a global community of mappers who use balloons and kites to take aerial photos, and our browser application MapKnitter to stitch them together. We've put our experience into a comprehensive balloon mapping kit that only costs $85 (shipping included) and comes with illustrated instructions."

Follow the action at Grassroots Mapping plus map archive and support them via Kickstarter!

African Journeys ~ Full-On BBC Documentaries...

2012-01-09T20:47:00.001-05:00

FYI, several BBC documentaries about West, Central, and Southern Africa and the Chinese presence...

Congo Harborage ~ Potential African Hong Kong!

2012-01-08T23:53:00.016-05:00

I'm hugely keen on both current and emerging African hotspots and hubports. Places such as Namibia's Walvis Bay, Nigeria's Lagos, Ghana's portcities, Liberia's Monrovia, Sierra Leone's Freetown, Morocco's Ceuta & Melilla, Eritrea's inland Asmara, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mo'bique, and most recently Cabinda. Looking more closely at Cabinda enhanced my interest in the greater-Congo region and most especially the high-potential harborage at the Congo River mouth embracing the Bas-Congo province seaports of Matadi, Boma, Banana, and Angola's Soyo... Beyond this cross-Congo River bridge at Matadi... ... there's not much heavy infrastructure currently built. From this flight you can get a sense for the landscape and situation... Perhaps the most compelling case for the Congolese seaports is made by none other than supercarrier Maersk and their dredging partnership with CVM (Congolaise des Voies Maritimes) to deepen the Congo River for larger vessels to access Boma and Matadi... Just upstream from these seaports are these amazing rapids......and the prospective Grand Inga Dam, a 40 Gigawatt goliath! If you combine the various factors -- gas & oil discoveries, natural resource export, hydropower aplenty, and more -- this underappreciated Congo harborage zone could be a rivermouth freeport conurbation to rival Hong Kong or Shanghai!

African Seaports ~ Infra'ture Investment Needed...

2012-01-08T23:19:00.012-05:00

Tremendous infrastructure investments in ports & ways are urgently needed to enable Africans to properly participate in the global economy. Indeed, I've written before about vital translogistics, accelerating infrastructure, and transport corridor plans as well as the need for creative thinking about infrastructure financing together with the challenges of special Chinese "deals". So it's very interesting to read the AfDB's key message Too many ports handle Africa’s maritime trade traffic -- few of them large enough to attract major shipping lines...

"A greater degree of regional port planning would make it possible to select hubs large enough to offer efficient transshipment services. A hub system would help to lower transport costs."

Check out their map of African ports showing their scale...

Vertical Gyms ~ Space-Saving Caracas Amenities

2012-01-08T23:01:00.004-05:00

BBC shows Vertical gyms solve Caracas slum space shortage...

"Space is at a premium in the slums of Caracas and sports facilities are few and far between. So architects at the Urban Think Tank decided to save space by building vertical gyms that rise above the surrounding buildings. This one is planned for Los Teques, on the southern edge of Caracas."

Big Mack ~ NatGeo on Titan's Huge Truck Engine!

2012-01-08T19:57:00.006-05:00

UniqueDaily spots NatGeo's Ultimate Factories making Mack engines!

Tokyo Transit ~ Metro-Regional Rails Supermap!

2012-01-07T20:33:00.008-05:00

Click on this amazing unified map of all Tokyo metro-railways... I found this reading Stephen Smith's Atlantic piece Why Tokyo's Privately Owned Rail Systems Work So Well.

Key Inhabitats ~ Latest Delightful Green Designs!

2012-01-07T18:28:00.020-05:00

High time for another dose of Inhabitat designs!

Sky Gardens ~ Spotlighting Great Greenroofs!

2012-01-07T17:31:00.003-05:00

Nice Sky Gardens series by Greenroofs.tv spotlighting life up top!

Blade Runner Sketchbook ~ Epic SF Imagery!

2012-01-07T16:39:00.004-05:00

Thanks to io9 for spotting the Blade Runner Sketchbook online!

BROAD Factory Towers ~ Chinese Fab Buildings

2012-01-07T14:10:00.006-05:00

Thanks to Next Big Future for spotting Chinese BROAD Group's factory-built, rapid fabrication skyscraper -- e.g. 30 storys in 15 days...

NedTrain ~ Dutch Rail MRO Keeps Things Rolling!

2012-01-06T12:27:00.016-05:00

The Dutch firm NedTrain provides maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) services for the big NS railco as well as a growing number of other passenger and freight carriers. This is a very important role -- as I've written before, both on infrastructure and various vehicles MRO -- and here we have great examples of rail equipment servicing... Track surface cleaning and upkeep (with infraco ProRail)... And cleaning of the trains (in Dutch but images obvious)... One especially cool thing for railfans and kids of all ages is the NedTrain openhouse!

Free Flyer ~ Untethered Spacewalk In Earth Orbit!

2012-01-06T02:17:00.006-05:00

New Years image from NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day!

"At about 100 meters from the cargo bay of the space shuttle Challenger, Bruce McCandless II was farther out than anyone had ever been before."

New Chicago Riverfront ~ Studio Gang's Green...

2012-01-05T21:55:00.005-05:00

Inhabitat's Amanda Coen writes how Invasive Species Threat Inspires Jeanne Gang to Reimagine Chicago’s South Side...

"...a solution that would create a barrier between the Mississippi River and Lake Michigan, restoring the natural flow of the Chicago River while also helping to introduce green infrastructure and revitalize a neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side. [...] a hydrological barrier would create a second waterfront in the form of an inland lagoon. Not only would it drastically change the landscape of Chicago’s South Side and deter the invasive carp species, but it would also force the city to re-think its wastewater treatment system so that cleaned water could be returned to Lake Michigan rather than flowing downstream."

Stationarea Utrecht ~ Interlinked Redevelopment

2012-01-05T16:36:00.019-05:00

Much like the massive redevelopments of and around the Dutch Amsterdam Centraal railway station I wrote about earlier, the Utrecht Central stationarea has a major upgrade in motion as well... Here's overall masterplan and summary map... The UC upgrade is part of the NS Wereldstations initiative... Curiously enough, much of the work is to upgrade a shopping zone called Nieuw Hoog Catharijne which will undo the bad planning and ugly design of a previous generation something you can see here in the Dutch-language promo film for the original Hoog Catharijne and related developments... And if you're really curious how things used to look in the Utrecht stationarea, check out this older footage...

De Bierboot ~ Utrecht's Floating Cargoshipper!

2012-01-05T02:13:00.005-05:00

Brilliant moves by Dutch canal city Utrecht -- De Bierboot! (Last two in Dutch, but visually self-explanatory!-) See also piece on Utrecht's Cargohopper!

Gaza Kite Kids ~ DIY Hero Engineers-in-Training!

2012-01-04T19:54:00.016-05:00

The 250,000 kids living in besieged Gaza can't do much about their geo-political plight, but they can build and fly kites! And they do -- lots of them! -- including the 2010 world-record breaking effort documented by Nitin Sawhney and Roger Hill in their Tayara Warakiya or Flying Paper film. UNRWA’s Gaza Summer Games 2011 included some thirteen thousand children wresting back the record from an ever competitive China! I first came to appreciate the kite-making kids and the power of their play from a NYTimes coverstory by James Bennet -- Rising Above, With Sticks, Paper and String -- which includes one my favorite vignettes...

"Wadiya seems to enjoy making kites as much as flying them. He gives most away to his friends, but he has held on to his favorite. Three crossed sticks of split bamboo give it a six-sided shape as broad as a manhole. The colors are of the Palestinian flag -- red, green, black and white. In the center, in gold, is the silhouette of Al Aksa Mosque in Jerusalem, one of Islam's holiest sites and the symbol of the Palestinian uprising. Yet when asked what he thinks about as he flies the kite above his damaged town, Wadiya, a serious boy, did not mention politics. His dream, he said, was to be an astronaut. He had never looked through a telescope, but he had seen pictures from space in books. "When I fly the kite, I think I'm on a different planet," he said. "I imagine myself someplace else."

Beautiful and inspiring words -- ones every kid can benefit from. Here's more of Wadiya and friends...

Urban Waterfronts ~ Krieger on Remaking Cities

2012-01-03T16:17:00.008-05:00

Reading about the Bund in Shanghai got me to NBBJ architects where they spotlight Alex Krieger's Remaking the Urban Waterfront...

"Urban waterfronts are unrivaled in their potential for providing an exceptional or celebratory enterprise. [...] Along the waterfront, it seems possible to accommodate the changing needs of today’s urban dwellers, as modern society continues its shift from an industrial-based economy, with its attendant spatial demands, to a service- and lifestyle-based economy, with its own requirements."

Interesting reading, especially the case examples illustrating the top-ten principles. Also compare the "before" picture of the Bund above to the "after" redesign picture by Tim Griffith/NBBJ...

Cartolinguistics ~ N American Dialects Map...

2012-01-03T13:28:00.004-05:00

Thanks to Cartastrophe for spotting Richard Aschmann's North American English dialects map with click-thru to spoken examples!

Cabinda ~ Interesting Northern Angolan Exclave

2012-01-02T20:13:00.009-05:00

North of the mouth of the Congo River and the narrow oceanfront territory of the huge Democratic Republic of the Congo (Congo-Kinshasa) but south of Republic of the Congo (Congo-Brazzaville) lies Cabinda, a nearly 8 thousand square km exclave and province of Angola. Much like the relationship between Eritrea and Ethiopia or Biafra and Nigeria or South Sudan and the rest, so too there are tensions between Cabinda and the rest of Angola dating back to colonial Portugese times. Wealthy in oil, natural beauty, and agri-resources -- and just downstream from the prospective Grand Inga dam -- this territory is poised for compelling future developments. This is fraught with challenges, however, as evidenced by this Journeyman visit...

TAP ~ Globe on Seventh Sense Bloodsucker...

2012-01-02T13:23:00.004-05:00

Nice to see Kathleen Pierce's Globe piece on Seventh Sense's TAP or Touch Activated Phlebotomy scheme for drawing blood samples. The key is a combination of tiny needles and simple mechanically powered suction to make a kind of artificial mosquito for diagnostic purposes. Check out their usage video...

Parkways ~ Hamburg's Green Covered Autobahn

2012-01-02T12:45:00.006-05:00

Itir Sonuparlak on The City Fix shares how Hamburg, Germany to Cover Expanded Highway with Public Park...

"... officials are adamant about expanding the highway’s capacity by adding lanes. At the same time, to meet the noise regulations of the city, planners of the project are looking into building noise barriers and tunnels. In an effort to ease the burden and negative effects of an expanded highway, officials are looking into making good use of the surface area on top of the tunnels by converting them into public parks. The urban areas near the noise-calming sections of the highway will be developed into housing."

Growth Dynamics ~ WSJ on Ghana & African Air...

2012-01-01T22:55:00.005-05:00

Drew Hinshaw writes in the WSJournal, In an African Dynamo's Expansion, the Perils of Prosperity...

"In 2011, Ghana's economy is forecast to grow 13.5%, a clip that exceeds every other country in the world except Qatar, according to the International Monetary Fund. Big oil finds pumped growth beyond 2010's 7.7%. As growth stagnates in the U.S. and Europe, Ghana's robust multiparty democracy has turned its capital into a hub for companies chasing business -- on a continent that grew 5.5% this year, according to the IMF. [...] Ghana's growth has made the nation of 24 million Africa's newest middle-income country, joining Namibia, Botswana and South Africa. Nigeria will soon join them, economists forecast. [...] But Ghana's bottlenecks are curbing what economists say could be even faster growth, offering lessons for other African countries that may follow a similar path of development."

Hinshaw also writes West African Skies Beckon More Carriers...

"From Senegal to Sierra Leone, start-ups, decrepit local carriers and even international airlines are out to prove that jet travel can extend beyond deep-pocketed passengers to West Africa's flourishing middle-class and business travelers. [...] West Africa has some of the world's fastest-growing economies, including that of Nigeria, the continent's most populous nation. The International Monetary Fund projects that Ghana's economy will grow 13.5% this year. The International Civil Aviation Organization expects Africans to fly 8% more miles in 2012 and 8.3 % more in 2012, making the continent earth's fastest-growing for air travel behind Asia and the Middle East. And industry analysts say traffic here could expand even faster as competition heats up, pushing prices down. But the new airlines are flying into some of the world's most dysfunctional airspace."

India's Way ~ NYTimes on Pathways to Progress

2012-01-01T22:35:00.008-05:00

Two key pieces on India's Way in the NYTimes, first Vikas Bajaj and Jim Yardley write Many of India’s Poor Turn to Private Schools...

"In India, the choice to live outside the faltering grid of government services is usually reserved for the rich or middle class, who can afford private housing compounds, private hospitals and private schools. But as India’s economy has expanded during the past two decades, an increasing number of India’s poor parents are now scraping together money to send their children to low-cost private schools in hopes of helping them escape poverty. [But] faced with sharp criticism of the woeful state of government schools, Indian policy makers have enacted a sweeping law intended to reverse their decline. But skeptics say the litany of new requirements could also wipe out many of the private schools now educating millions of students."

Second, Yardley writes In One Slum, Misery, Work, Politics and Hope...

"In the labyrinthine slum known as Dharavi are 60,000 structures, many of them shanties, and as many as one million people living and working on a triangle of land barely two-thirds the size of Central Park in Manhattan. Dharavi is one of the world’s most infamous slums, a cliché of Indian misery. It is also a churning hive of workshops with an annual economic output estimated to be $600 million to more than $1 billion. “This is a parallel economy,” said Mr. Mobin, whose family is involved in several businesses in Dharavi. “In most developed countries, there is only one economy. But in India, there are two.” India is a rising economic power, even as huge portions of its economy operate in the shadows. Its “formal” economy consists of businesses that pay taxes, adhere to labor regulations and burnish the country’s global image. India’s “informal” economy is everything else: the hundreds of millions of shopkeepers, farmers, construction workers, taxi drivers, street vendors, rag pickers, tailors, repairmen, middlemen, black marketeers and more."

See also photos on Getting Ahead in Dharavi by Adam Ferguson.

Bottling Coca-Cola ~ NatGeo's Ultimate Factories

2012-01-01T19:26:00.005-05:00

UniqueDaily spots NatGeo's Ultimate Factories on Coca-Cola!

Moscow Vibe ~ Lovely Russian City Timelapse...

2012-01-01T18:55:00.001-05:00

Thanks to Miss Cellania for spotting Moscow timelapse...

Fehmarn Tunnel ~ Linking Germany & Denmark

2012-01-01T18:32:00.003-05:00

Hauke Goos writes in Der Spiegel about Germans and Danes Split over Undersea Link...

"...an enormous, groundbreaking project: nearly 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) long, 40 meters (130 feet) wide, nearly 10 meters high -- and expected to cost at least €5.5 billion ($7.2 billion). Four tubes are planned: two for the highway, each with two lanes, and two for the railway, each with one track. The tunnel would consist of huge concrete elements assembled on land and lowered by boats into a colossal trench on the Baltic seafloor. It would be one of the longest immersed tunnels ever built."

Epic Manhattan ~ Architectural Record Covershot!

2011-12-30T22:21:00.009-05:00

Stunningly beautiful fold-out cover photo by Iwan Baan of Epic Manhattan on the Architectural Record issue ten years after 9/11... (FYI, this is just the best of several 9/11 covers noted by SPD)

Muddy Charles Pub ~ MIT Extracurricular Hub!

2011-12-30T18:11:00.019-05:00

Nice short piece in the latest Tech Review by Kenrick Vezina on The storied past and uncertain future of the Muddy Charles: A Physicist Walks into a Bar...

"On a campus dominated by cold concrete and hard science, the Muddy Charles pub exudes warmth [and] welcomes Nobel laureates and graduate students alike. [...] Begun as a Friday afternoon club, the pub became an official MIT institution (and got its current name) when the Graduate Student Council began running it in 1968. Roughly equidistant from many major departments at MIT, the Muddy pulls together people from across campus [...] The combination of cheap drinks and big ideas draws a smart, eclectic crowd and prompted Media Lab lecturer Joost Bonsen '90, SM '06, to hold his informal venture capital meet-and-greets there. (Bonsen was among the "venture catalysts" in Venture Café, a book about high-tech entrepreneurs that puts the Muddy on its list of places where great ideas can meet great funding.) Bonsen points to MIT's Energy Club as an example of a big idea hatched at the pub. Now one of MIT's largest clubs, it was originally "a small group of students who gathered over beer at the Muddy once a week to talk about various energy topics" [Indeed, the pub is] "a crucial aspect of the MIT experience." As of November, [ill-considered] plans to renovate Walker [and kick out the pub] were still up in the air, leaving the Muddy's fate uncertain. Yet one thing is clear: athletes, teachers, and scholars all feel welcome there, and the people who find their way inside seem to end up with a lifelong affection for the place."

It's a wonderful venue for ethanol-fueled ideation and creativity! Indeed, the Muddy is perhaps the single most important piece of extracurricular infrastructure at MIT and yet our current Institute senior administration is quite clueless about its legacy. Not only was the MIT Energy Club born there, but also the MIT Energy Conference, TechLink, TinyTech Club, Acoustic BBQ, i-Teams class, project collaboration, multiple startup companies, and more, nevermind all the Welcome-to-MIT initiations, PhD defense celebrations, alum reunions. We'll see if those currently in power figures out that Walker Memorial really ought to be a graduate student, post-doc, and alumni center or something actually useful. In any case -- for now -- the Muddy is still serving affordable joy by the pint & pitcher!

Star Peace ~ Sulu Brokers Trek vs Wars Dispute!-)

2011-12-30T18:06:00.002-05:00

Ridiculous Star Trek vs Star Wars dispute brokered by Mr Sulu!-)

WindFlip ~ Simplifying Offshore Installations...

2011-12-30T17:23:00.006-05:00

Thanks to Brit Liggett at Inhabitat for The WindFlip Barge Concept Installs Offshore Wind Turbines Inexpensively and With Ease...

"WindFlip barge concept was designed to simplify the installation of offshore wind turbines and in the process has managed to be a solution that also cuts cost. Installing offshore wind turbines can be an expensive task -- the process requires skilled technicians to assemble turbines at sea, and to anchor them at great depths. Alternatively, the WindFlip barge allows turbines to be assembled completely on shore, towed to their location, and then simply tipped into place -- thus minimizing the need for expensive work at sea."

Future Cities ~ Swissnex Boston on Living Labs...

2011-12-30T17:13:00.006-05:00

Quick little nugget from Swissnex Day 2011 theme of Future Cities spotlighting public-private engagements focusing on lessons from Boston-metro. Note especially our Media Lab colleague Ryan Chin's description of Living Labs or urban testbeds...

Nature of Cities ~ Beatley on Biophilic Movement

2011-12-30T00:34:00.006-05:00

Check out The Nature of Cities documentary trailer...

"...about the projects and people in cities across the world who believe that, even as we become more urbanized, we must reclaim an essential piece of our humanness -- our connection to the nature around us. Amazing projects in cities around the globe have already begun this task. It is our goal to raise the consciousness and understanding of this movement as we explore the need of moving not only to sustainability, but also to a regenerative way of living."

Also related new book by Prof Timothy Beatley on Biophilic Cities. Thanks to Landscape+Urbanism for spotting these!

Hot Cities ~ Rockefeller Foundation's Urban Docu

2011-12-30T00:26:00.004-05:00

Check out Rockefeller Foundation's 2009 eight-part Hot Cities documentary series about global change dynamics and conurbations...